Association Between Nasal Polyp and -308, -238 Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha Polymorphism

Park, Seong Kook; Choi, Eun Seok

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Nasal polyps are the most common mass lesion of the nasal cavity and it occurs on both infectious and noninfectious basis, and especially because genetic etiology is suspected in the development of nasal polyp. Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) is a pivotal cytokine in inflammatory and infectious diseases, and increased tissue TNF-alpha levels have been observed in the inflammatory type of nasal polyp. It has been known that several TNF-alpha gene polymorphisms in a promoter region are related to TNF-alpha production. Among them, the G to A substitution at the position 308 (TNF-alpha 308A) and at the position 238 (TNF-alpha 238A) in the TNF-alpha promoter are associated with the high or low production of TNF-alpha. Therefore, we investigated the association between with TNF-alpha promoter polymorphism and nasal polyps. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: This study included 104 patients with polyp associated chronic sinusitis and 104 healthy controls. TNF-alpha promoter genotype was screened by PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP). RESULTS: In the nasal polyp associated chronic sinusitis, the frequency of TNF-alpha 308A was higher than those of healthy controls (OR, 1.739;95% CI, 0.653-4.633). But there was no statistical significance between distribution of TNF-alpha gene polymorphism and nasal polyps. Frequency of TNF-alpha 238A was higher in nasal polyp than in healthy controls, but no significant differences were found. We concluded that TNF-alpha polymorphism did not show genetic predisposition with regard to nasal polyp in Korean patients.